


Pepper's True Cauling

by AnonEhouse



Category: Iron Man (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Magic, Gen, Ghosts, Witchcraft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-27
Updated: 2013-10-27
Packaged: 2017-12-30 14:12:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1019583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnonEhouse/pseuds/AnonEhouse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pepper doesn't consider it sporting to use her witchcraft in everyday life, but when your adorably infuriating boss disappears in Afghanistan, then it's time to roll up your sleeves and get out your spell book.</p><p>(Mostly this fic is Pepper. And the death is and it isn't... and it's canonical, and it isn't...confusing, I know.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pepper's True Cauling

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Spook Me ficathon 2013 (luckily for me the organizer doesn't mind if it's not really spooky, because I'm not a spooky writer.)
> 
> Based on this Photo prompt[ Here](http://i879.photobucket.com/albums/ab353/spook_me/Spook_Me%20Tarot%20Cards/Ghosts_15_zps9c226f26.jpg)

(If you are reading this on any PAY site this is a STOLEN WORK, the author has NOT Given Permission for it to be here. If you're paying to read it, you're being cheated too because you can read it on Archiveofourown for FREE.)

It was her birthday, damn it. What the hell kind of a birthday present was this phone call? She'd pushed Tony out the door so she could finish clearing her schedule and go out to luxuriate at the spa. She wanted to be totally pampered without having to worry about Tony getting into trouble while she was unavailable. This had to be a joke, one of Tony's stupid pranks. But Obadiah wouldn't go along with it.

Pepper got up, flinging avocado pulp and cucumber slices onto the floor as she grabbed for a towel to wipe the mud pack off her face. Then she picked up the phone again. "Are you certain, Mr. Stane? No, no, I'm not... but... the army... Tony's not a soldier. He wouldn't..." She stepped into the shower, still holding her StarkPhone (impervious to water and bodily fluids according to Tony who was king of TMI) and sluiced off the rest of the beauty treatment (Tony always said she didn't need it, oh, God, Tony.). "Right. They've searched thoroughly, I believe you. Colonel Rhodes? He's unconscious, but he'll be all right? Thank God." Pepper waved an imperious hand and attendants scurried forward to pat her dry and wrap a towel around her. "Is there anything we can do?"

Obadiah's voice sounded falsely hearty. "I have complete confidence in the military, Pepper. They'll find him." He paused and then continued, "But in the meantime, we have to keep up confidence in the company. Don't do anything out of the ordinary. You had the next two days off, take them. Go shopping or something, take your mind off things."

"Yes, sir," Pepper said, "I'll do that, Mr. Stane. Please keep me informed of any word." She fought not to say anything that would bite her in the ass later and then she ended the call. Obadiah remembered her birthday, why did that make her so angry? She damn well would go shopping; she'd take back the tasteful pearl necklace and matching earrings she'd bought on Tony's account and get a sexy dress, the sexiest, slinkiest dress she could find. Tony would have to come back to see her wear it.

 

Oh, God, that dress was a mistake, Pepper realized the moment she tried it on again at home and turned before her three-sided mirror. But she couldn't take it back, not when she'd bought it for Tony, that would spoil the intent and tell the powers not to bother bringing him home. She wrapped it in tissue and put it on a padded hanger in her closet and then pulled out grandma's recipe book. Grandma hadn't written most things down; she was more a pinch of newt, soupspoon of powdered mica, chant and stir, sort of witch. Pepper was sorry now that she had been too proud to listen to Grandma. Pepper had been born with a caul, fine, that didn't mean she had to use her special abilities to get ahead in life. She'd succeed on her own, Grandma!

Which was fine when it was just working her way up the corporate ladder, but not when her stupid genius boss was lost.

Today was Tuesday, a good day for casting spells relating to courage, men, sexual energy, and war, so that was perfect for finding Tony on a battlefield. It was also a day when red objects and iron and Mars would strengthen spells according to Grandma's book.

Pepper inscribed a red candle with the symbol for Mars, using an old iron nail she'd kept for luck, and stripped. She decided the risk of someone peering over a balcony and calling the police made it inadvisable to perform sky-clad outside. Or worse, they might just take photos and post them on the internet. 

She didn't have an altar or a consecrated althame or any of the basic tools, but for this simple spell, her native ability should be enough. She took one of the contracts she'd had Tony sign, rolled it up and set it in a glass full of his favorite scotch. Then she lit the candle while thinking fiercely of Tony, live, laughing, infuriating, Tony, and used it to set the contract on fire. She stared at the thin stream of smoke. And thought of the soldiers who'd died during the ambush. They would answer her. They would help.

The smoke swirled into horsemen, soldiers on horseback. "No," she commanded. "Not you." A skull wearing a Norman helmet appeared. "Not you." She held her determination, refusing and refusing, until she saw a young man wearing modern day gray-green camo. Recently dead, if he could still remember clothing as well as body. "Do you know Tony Stark?" The spirit nodded.

"Is he there with you?"

The spirit shook his head and faded away. Pepper let the spell lapse, suddenly exhausted. Tony was alive. "Rhodey," she muttered as she crumpled to the carpet. "Keep looking. Tony is alive."

 

Rhodey looked. The Air Force looked. But most of all Pepper looked over the next few days. She took a leave of absence and called up the soldiers' spirits every day despite the toll it took on her body. The four who had been with Tony in the vehicle were cooperative, but they'd died before Tony was taken, and they knew nothing helpful. After a week, one of them pointed to his hand and firmed up his smoky face into a frown. They were fading, it would soon be impossible to see expressions, but right now she could see he was angry. "Something happened to your hand?"

The soldier shook his head and tapped his wrist, and mimed taking something off.

"Oh! They stole your watch." Pepper had an idea. "Think of your watch. It belongs to you. You can go to it, find the thief." She muttered incantations under her breath, firming the connection between her and this spirit. The soldier's spirit wavered and then leaped suddenly, pulling her spirit along with it. They moved through a foggy, dull yellow-gray cloud occasionally lit by scenes of the outside, rocks, mountains, goat herders, and then the cloud darkened as if they were traveling through solid stone. Pepper hung on grimly, her spirit didn't need to breathe, so why was she imagining the feeling of suffocation? 

They emerged into a confusion of light, bright patches amid darkness, and noise, angry yelling and wild splashing. The soldier appeared at the side of a man dressed in Afghani-style robes and clawed at his wrist, trying to get the silver watch the man wore. The soldier must have been strong-willed in life because he managed enough poltergeist energy to rip the watch off and cut the man with his spectral fingernails. The man's shout turned to a cry of shock and he fell back, releasing his hold on another man's shoulders just as Pepper recognized the man they were forcing into a barrel of water. _TONY!_ she screamed. He heard her, she could see his reaction. He twisted, trying to get to her, fighting the men holding him. They were distracted and unbalanced with one of them gone. Tony slipped sideways, lost his grip on a black block he was holding. It fell into the water. 

It was a car battery. Tony had told her once that a car battery couldn't kill you; skin resistance made that impossible. You'd have to be stupid enough to put a piece of metal _in_ your skin completing the circuit through your blood. Under those circumstances even a [ 9-volt battery could kill.](http://darwinawards.com/darwin/darwin1999-50.html). All it really takes is seven milliamps for three seconds, then the heart rhythm is interrupted, and you die. 

There were sparks. Nothing dramatic. Tony had made bigger displays while welding a toaster. But Tony fell into the water, twitched for a few seconds and went still. Tony was never still.

And then his spirit pulled away from his body. Pepper gasped. She'd never seen the moment of death itself. Tony's spirit was bright, brighter than any she'd ever seen, and had a glowing blue disk in his chest, making him brighter still. He looked right at her. His mouth moved. _Pep?_ She could hear him. He was untrained, but fresh, full of energy. She... oh, God, she'd got Tony killed. She couldn't leave his spirit here, confused and lonely, fading away. She reached out to him, and clumsily, he reached back. The soldier's spirit had gone, taking a spiritual image of his watch had appeased him. It was just her and Tony, nothing else mattered. Not his discarded body, and certainly not the terrorists dragging his corpse from the water and making futile attempts to revive it.

 _Tony. I'm taking you home. Come with me._ She tugged, following the thread that linked her to her own body. Tony held onto her tightly and let her pull him back. 

She opened her eyes back in her own apartment in time to catch the flash of blue light as Tony's spirit slid through the contract and into the glass of scotch she'd used every day, building up the essence of Tony in it. "Tony?" She picked up the glass carefully. His face superimposed on the glass, staring back at her wildly. "It will be all right. I... I'll make it all right, Tony." She carried him over to the open bottle of scotch and used a funnel to pour the glass of Tony into it, so she could cap it and keep him safe. 

And then she fainted.

 

When she woke she wondered for a moment if she'd imagined it. Then she heard Tony, whispering to her spirit ears. _Aww, Pep, Pep, enough with the beauty sleep, already. I'm stuck in this bottle, damn it. Wish I could touch you._

Pepper sat up, and looked up at the bottle on her dressing table. Tony was grinning back at her from inside it, raising his eyebrows and smirking at her. "OH!" Pepper blushed and grabbed a robe, hastily throwing it on. "Mr. Stark, I'm.... I'm so, so sorry." She touched the bottle and started to cry. "I got you killed."

 _Eh,_ Tony said with a shrug, of his ethereal shoulders _Not your fault. I was dying anyway. This is better. And hey! I just got a great idea... do you take shorthand?_

Pepper huffed and wiped at her nose, wanting to laugh and cry at the same time. "I'm not your secretary, Mr. Stark."

 _You... you're my everything,_ Tony said. _You always were._ He put his hand up to the glass, and she put her hand against it on her side. _How does this work? Am I your Tony-slave in a bottle, grant you wishes, that sort of thing?_

"No. No, nothing like that. I just wanted to bring you home. You can't... you can't stay long. Not without a body." Pepper thought of some of Grandma's darker spells, the ones she kept for 'curiosity'. "I could get an animal to drink... and well, you could go into their body."

Tony looked tempted and disgusted in equal parts. _I dunno... you know about this stuff... could I still be me, if I was in a monkey? It'd have to be something with hands._ Tony turned wistful. _And I'd have to give up sex, unless, you know... really kinky people..._

"Well, you'd be you, but... the animal would be gone, and since it was innocent, that would be black magic." Grandma had warned her about that. You could repay evil in kind with impunity, but there was always a price for using your magic to harm the innocent. "But that's... I could take care of that." The punishment would fall on her, she could make certain of that.

Tony in spirit form was harder to fool. _No. Scratch that. I've got enough on my conscience. I don't want to go with any more black marks against me._ He looked serious. More serious than she'd ever seen him. _I need to tell Obi to stop weapons manufacture at S.I. It's... it's wrong, it's getting into the wrong hands. Someone in the company is diverting shipments that are winding up in the hands of the terrorists._

Pepper sat down heavily at her dressing table chair, a delicate French Provincial thing in pink and white. "Tony, no. That can't be... and even if it is. I can't. Obadiah won't listen to me, you know he won't. And if he tried, the board wouldn't allow it. That would break the company."

_No, no, see, it's got to be done. Before I go, or vanish, or whatever, I've got to know my inventions aren't being misused. I've **got** to, Pepper! Please. At least take me to my office at S.I. help me track the shipments, find out who's behind it. Get some evidence to convince Obi. Something he can show the board._

Pepper never had been good at saying no to Tony, not when it was something he really wanted. "All right," she said an hour later, outside S.I.'s main office, after having made up her best business cool frame of mind and dressed to match, with the Tony bottle carried safely in a ridiculous straw handbag Tony had brought her back as a souvenir from one of his escapades. It had a hula dancer on one side, stitched in colored raffia and on the other the raffia spelled out, 'Tony visited Tahiti and All I got was this lousy bag'. Well, he'd promised her a custom made purse. She didn't know why she hadn't thrown it out. It was incredibly tacky. But it was just the right size to hold Tony with a fluffy towel nestling around his bottle for padding.

She marched right up the stairs. Why not? She had every right to be here. Even though she was still on leave. Tony's office was empty, so she didn't need any excuses. She set Tony bottle down on the desk, within view of the computer monitor. It was easier to hear him with the cap off, so she opened the bottle before beginning.

 _Ghost drive,_ Tony said. _Yeah, I know. Not funny. Pull that up there,_ he said, pointing. He gave her an override code. She tapped it in quickly, and plugged in a flash drive she'd brought to record whatever they found. They could analyze it at her apartment at leisure, once they had the data. 

"Tony...what's that?" Pepper noticed a video among all the many, many unsanctioned sales.

_Dirty movie? Not one of mine. Let's see it, Pep._

The video came on and they saw Tony tied to a chair, with blood seeping through bandages on his chest. He was surrounded by terrorists. One of them was speaking in a language Pepper didn't recognize. "Translate, here, translate." She clicked and the sound was in English. 

"You did not tell us that the target you paid us to kill was the great Tony Stark. As you can see, Obadiah Stane..."

Pepper said, "Oh, my God." Tony said nothing. He just stared at the video.

"... your deception and lies will cost you dearly. The price to kill Tony Stark has just gone up."

 _Save that, Pep. And get the hell out of here._

"Yes, yes, Tony." Pepper finished and pulled the flash free just as the office door opened. She looked up and froze. Obadiah walked in.

"Pepper, what a pleasant surprise."

Pepper smiled at Obadiah, somehow, keeping his eyes on her as she clicked for the screensaver to come on, hiding the ghost drive folders. "I just... I..." she ran out of words.

Obadiah put on a sympathetic expression. It made her skin crawl, and then he patted her on the shoulder. "Yeah, I know. We all miss Tony, but you and I... well, we were really all the family he had." Obie glanced at the screensaver, which was showing Tony's car collection. "This is like a wake."

"Yes. Yes, it is," Pepper said softly. She looked at the bottle. Tony was looking at Obie. There was something hard and cold in Tony's eyes for a moment, and then he looked at Pepper and nodded. She swallowed hard as Obie picked up the bottle. She should say something, she should protest.

But then Obie poured a glass of Tony. "Tony always had the good stuff." He looked at her. "You are a very rare woman. Tony didn't know how lucky he was." He picked up the glass and his eyes were tracing her face in a possessive caress worse than any physical groping. 

Pepper blushed, and then hated herself for her weakness. She looked straight into Obie's eyes. "Tony knew. He always knew."

Obadiah shrugged and tossed back the drink. Pepper looked at the bottle. It was just plain scotch. Obadiah coughed. His eyes widened. He staggered and took hold of the edge of the desk. 

"Mr. Stane? Are you all right?" Pepper asked. She wasn't absolutely _certain_ Tony would be able to take over and kick Obadiah out. An animal's psyche was weak compared to a man's, but nothing about Obadiah was weak. And Tony, for all she cared about him, Tony wasn't a fighter. Was he?

Obadiah took a deep breath, and then he straightened to smile at her. It was Tony's smile. And his eyes were a warm brown, not icy blue. "Hey, Potts, miss me?"

"Tony?"

"Yeah. I'm back." He held out his arms and Pepper found herself enfolded and held warmly. "Wow, I'm taller than you."

Pepper laughed against Tony's chest and then impulsively pulled him down into a kiss. He tasted of Scotch and a little like Obadiah's cigars. They broke the kiss after a moment by mutual consent. Tony tilted his head. "Was that weird?"

"No." Pepper touched Tony's cheek. "Well, maybe a little. Oh, Tony, what will we do?"

"I don't know, not yet. But it's going to be fun, Peps. You'll see." He smiled. "Stay with me?"

Pepper didn't have to look to see the thread binding them together. "Yes." She smiled.


End file.
